


Dalinar's Curse

by dragoninatrenchcoat



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Dalinavani, F/M, Gen, Highstorm, Old Magic, The Nightwatcher, shshsh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4801898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragoninatrenchcoat/pseuds/dragoninatrenchcoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While sheltering from a highstorm, Navani asks Dalinar to talk to her about his late wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dalinar's Curse

The highstorm raged outside. Dalinar honestly couldn’t say how long it had been since he’d last sheltered from a highstorm and remained conscious throughout.

Regardless, it was just him and Navani. None of his attendants, none of his guards, neither of his sons, just him and Navani.

It had simply worked out that way.

By accident.

“Why do you never talk about her?” Navani asked him, joining him near the window on the leeward side of the room.

“Hmm?” Dalinar asked, staring out into the pouring rivulets of water rushing, cleaning the streets.

_“shshsh.”_

The name slipped past him, nearly lost in the sound of the wind in the highstorm, but he realized quickly enough to know who she meant. He stood up a little straighter and looked farther out into the distance. On one hand, he didn’t like lying to Navani... but on the other, he didn’t want to speak of this weakness of his.

“It’s been a long time, Navani,” he said, his voice quiet.

“That’s what you always say whenever I mention her,” Navani pointed out, stepping closer to him.

“I prefer to look to the future.”

“That’s what you always say whenever I press.”

He leaned one hand on the wall, but didn’t turn to face her.

“It’s fine if you’re still in love with her,” Navani said, after a pause. “I understand. You two...”

Her words passed him by, one by one, out through the window to be washed away by the highstorm’s pounding rain. He wondered whether he truly never heard them or if perhaps he did hear them, if he knew them for even a fraction of a moment before the Old Magic took the memory of them away.

“What we have,” Navani continued, touching her covered safehand to his right arm, “is different. Not better or worse. But... you need to talk about her, Dalinar. You need to release her. I can see the way she tugs on your mind. I can see it in the wrinkles by your eyes whenever I mention her.”

In a way... she _was_ right. He had released her, in the technical way, released her memory out into the night. He didn’t pine after her or mourn her or spend hours yearning for her, but he did carry her around with him. Not _her_ , perhaps, but something. Something that Navani would be able to see in the wrinkles by his eyes whenever she mentioned her.

“I _have_ released her,” he told her. It wasn’t a lie. “I have released her as much as I can. What’s left is... scar tissue, Navani.”

 _The result of an incision,_ he kept himself from saying, only at the last moment realizing how true it was. The result of an incision into his mind, a clinical removal of everything Adolin and Renarin’s mother had ever been.

“Too much scar tissue, I think,” she suggested. “If she were truly behind you, you would mention her once or twice.”

He let out a long, deep breath, his shoulders falling a little at the action. “I can’t,” he said softly, before he even realized he’d spoken.

“Of course you can.” She wrapped her left arm around his right, moving closer. “Tell me something. Anything. Just one little story about her.”

 _I can’t._ “You don’t want to open this old wound,” he lied to her, feeling dark and cloudy in his chest for doing so.

“Some wounds need to taste the air before they can heal properly,” she countered. “I’m the only one here. You can be vulnerable in front of me. Tell me.”

Her words relaxed him. Not because her voice was beautiful and soothing--which it was--but because she was _right_. He _could_ be vulnerable in front of her. She _was_ the only one here.

He could tell her.

Dalinar looked down at his hands, then, for the first time since she’d broached the subject, to Navani. She smiled at him, a smooth, lovely, genuine smile that melted his heart. He put one hand over her safehand as he turned to her.

“When I say I can’t,” he said, his voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the howling winds outside, “I mean that I can’t.”

“Dalinar,” Navani sighed, opening her mouth to start a new argument, but he cut her off with a meaningful look.

“I can’t, Navani,” he continued. His heart pounded a little, that love-step the heart does when all one wants is to keep this beautiful, wonderful person in one’s life. He took her covered safehand in his left hand and held it, tight, feeling her fingers through the silky fabric. Then he took a breath and said, “I can’t because... I don’t know who she was.”

Navani clearly didn’t expect that. She stood silent, looking up at him, her eyes scanning as she felt through her mind for the answer to the puzzle he had just presented her.

“I’ve never told anyone,” he said, just as quietly as before, “because there is nothing they can do. There is nothing I can do. My wife is gone, Navani, and moreover, she is gone from me.”

“I don’t understand,” Navani said, peering into his eyes. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear.

“Do you remember the night when we realized the visions were true?” he asked her. “The four of us--you, me, and my sons--were discussing why I might have been experiencing them or from whence they might have come.”

“It feels like years have passed since that night, but I remember it,” Navani nodded.

“We told you on that night that I had once sought the Old Magic, and that I have my boon and my curse, that I know them, that they are unrelated to the visions. That I have never told anyone what they are.”

Her eyes widened in revelation. Dalinar nodded.

“I don’t remember my wife,” he told her. “And I never will.”

“But we’ve spoken about her before,” Navani said, confused.

Dalinar shook his head. “We haven’t. You have.”

He watched her skim through her memories and remained silent while she thought. He could stand here and study her beautiful face until the end of time and be content.

“You’ve always had vague responses,” she said, sounding surprised at herself, almost a little irritated--perhaps at herself, for never having noticed. “But I talk about her to you. Surely you’ve learned...”

But he shook his head. “I don’t hear it. When you- when anyone speaks of her, the words pass me by entirely. Even her name becomes mere whispers on the wind.”

Navani blinked up at him. He saw a look in her eye, that brilliant, calculative look, like she wanted to help. That look made him deflate a little.

“You can’t do anything,” he promised her. “This is the Old Magic. The Nightwatcher’s curse. There is nothing to be done but move forward.”

“What was your boon, then?” Navani asked after a short pause, leaning a little closer. “What did you ask for that she took _shshsh_ from you?”

How could Dalinar explain? How could he tell her that the loss of his wife had actually been his boon? How could he admit that he’d _asked_ for the memories to be taken from him? That his curse was something else altogether?

He smiled a tired smile and nodded to the pattering of the rain. “The storm is over,” he told her. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll leave the rest of this story for another time.”

Navani took his hand in both of hers. “I love you, Dalinar,” she said softly.

“I love you, Navani.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly, then turned to lead her out of the room.

 


End file.
